Facts matter, a principle you probably uphold. Fact is, propaganda is important for winning a war. Motivating the troops, motivating the domestic populace, depressing the enemy, etc.

Allied troops, including Americans, had a fairly high rate of desertion during WWII in the European theater. There was practically no desertion in the pacific theater. What was the difference? Were the American soldiers in the Pacific braver, gutsier, tougher than their brothers in Europe?

No. In Europe, there was some place to go after you walked away from the battle. In the pacific, the battles were mostly on islands, and if you wanted to leave -- well, it was a VERY LONG swim.

George Patton was apparently a great general whose mouth got him into trouble when he spoke out of turn off the topic in the wrong place. (I can relate to all that.)

A famous Patton quote:

No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.

Quite sensible, really.

American Heritage history of World War II, a story, possibly apocryphal, that German troops were a little unnerved the first time they faced Americans. They had fought the British, and the British, heirs to a grand military tradition the Germans could understand, sang as they entered battle. But these Americans were silent, grim. Americans weren't there for glory, but to do the job and get back home. — Srap Tasmaner

The silent grim rugged brave tough American soldier -- definitely an American heritage theme--the Greatest Generation, etc.



IRON GUTS -- no irritable bowel syndrome for these men!

Sherman — Srap Tasmaner

"War is hell." William T. Sherman

So "who" or "what" does a baby believe it is? — Benj96

As 180 Proof noted, babies don't have beliefs. I suspect your use of the word was not a suggestion that babies do have beliefs, but rather, just a way of asking, "What's going on in there? Quite a bit, apparently, a lot of it is one-way, all that perception pouring in.

William James uses the phrase 'blooming and buzzing confusion' to describe a baby's experience of the world as pure sensation that comes before any rationality

Hmmm, what is that thing down there, poke poke; it seems to have feeling when I touch it. Hmmmm, that could be a piece of me -- hadn't thought about it all these years. poke poke. Oh! My secretary just said that was my foot, Foot! Imagine that. God! There are two foot, one right next to the other one, How did that happen? And they are attached!

Good to get body part consciousness out of the way early.

I understand why I have difficulty getting rid of books. They have content and symbolic value. What is harder to understand is why I have as much difficulty getting rid of stuff that is by definition, junk. Because this stuff has been in my possession for decades, it has developed attachment, adhesion, linkage. It's just plain hard to let go of it. (Until I do, then POOF! I no longer care about it.)

I think the world can easily manage a radical drop in consumerism. — Tom Storm

But the relationship between consumerism and industrialism (production) is reciprocal: a radical drop in consumption means less production; less production means fewer jobs, fewer incomes, fewer meals, fewer everything,

Yes, of course, factories could produce strictly for human needs (not wants). Yes, if people stopped consuming so much crap they would have more money left over, everything else being equal. Alas, everything else isn't equal. If consumption were radically reduced, a large share of the world's economy (the jobs people work at to earn wages to support themselves and their families) would disappear.

I would strongly prefer to see a radical reduction in production and consumption (for the sake of the environment, if nothing else) but at the same time, 1 or 2 billion people (or more) don't want to be thrown into destitution.

I don't have a solution to this problem.

It's the same problem as global heating: We need to radically reduce CO2, methane, and CFC emissions YESTERDAY. If we did that, the world's economy would crash. Fossil fuels and industrial production are the core of the world economy. Break the core, and the economy is broken. Unfortunately, we no longer have time to carry out reductions slowly. The upshot, as far as I can tell, is that we are totally screwed.

Let me take a different tack than the one I took above, where I said "Culture hasn't been a key factor? Au contraire!"

There's that Madonna song, written by Peter Brown and Robert Rans, Material Girl (1984). The chorus is...

'Cause we are living in a material world
And I am a material girl
You know that we are living in a material world
And I am a material girl

The existing technology and industry that is available determines the sort of culture we have. Agrarian societies have agrarian cultures based on agrarian technology. It's not 'no tech' but it does tend to be low tech--the devices used to connect the horse to the plow, the plow, the crop yields, the kind of life that horse power makes possible. Not all that bad. Elsewhere, steam is harnessed to do much more work than a horse can. One day, the steam engine pulls a train out into the hinterlands and the agrarian culture is changed by the industrial technology. Now the farmers sell their crops to distant markets and and can buy things from distant warehouses, which the train will deliver. No more home-spun cloth; now they can get nicer cloth made in a factory. No more clunky locally made boots. Now their boots are made in a factory with big machines, better leather, and standard sizes. Much nicer.

Industrial capitalism has different rules than agrarian agriculture--which is what many countries, including the US, had in the past. Industrial capitalism, in the US or China, depends on the reciprocal movement of production and consumption.

Question: What leads the reciprocal process: consumption or production?

It might be production. I have the technology at hand; I can use it to make shoes. But how many shoes should I make? 1 pair per person per year in this city? My factory can do that quite easily, and it will be somewhat profitable. However, I have the capacity to make 2 pairs of shoes per person per year. At that level, I will make more profit and will get richer. But somehow, I have to convince people that they should buy an extra pair of shoes per person per year.

Fortunately, somebody just invented advertising. I can use advertising to convince people that it is actually a very good thing to have 2 pairs of shoes per person per year--a black work boot and a brown oxford. Next year the ideal will be a black work book, a brown oxford, and something new, an fancy slip-on. And so on.

The shoemaker's factory is humming, he's getting rich, and shoes have become fashion. More, more, more.

Industrial production and capitalism's need for ever-expanded markets creates and drives culture. What used to be an agrarian culture of peasants, yeomen farmers, able hard working men and sturdy resourceful women, becomes a dense urban culture of many people working together, doing all sorts of narrowly defined tasks.

In the industrialized, capitalist urban environment, buying and displaying goods has become more than a habit -- it's an economic necessity. The act of buying and having takes on values that were entirely irrelevant or unimaginable in even a prosperous agrarian society. The mountain of products that the factories produce must be bought -- whether or not people need or want them. (Or overproduction leads to a depression.)

Industrialized capitalism is a trap. Once a given culture steps onto the treadmill of production and consumption, it's very hard for it to get off without a crash. And, like all good traps, it isn't really visible until it's too late.

A cynical atheist said, "Nothing fails like prayer." Ambrose Bierce's definition of prayer is similar in tone.

The act of prayer ought to be a humbling, rather than an ego-boosting, experience. God knows all about us, after all. Our files are complete and open to him for review. Who are we to have so many demands?

That, at least, is one teaching about prayer.

There are many factors involved in this, but it seems like a global phenomenon, and culture hasn't been a key factor behind it. Do you think consumerism is the primary factor, a primary factor or a motivating influence for these other factors, or just generally, where does it fit in for you?

For me, concerns about climate change, pollution and other environmental factors, as well as issues such as worker pay, home affordability, wealth equality and issues such as my OP, are all examples against the idea of "progress at any cost". — Judaka

Culture hasn't been a key factor? Au contraire! Consumerism (I am what I buy) is a key aspect of American and other cultures! No, not everybody, but it's a dominant flavor, like clove and cinnamon. We may have exported consumerism to some places; other places developed it on their own. In itself it isn't such a terrible thing -- having comfortable furniture, a nicely decorated home, a good car, a whizzy computer, a cell phone with great features, high quality food, nice clothes... but consumerism goes beyond that. It's the ever bigger house, more new and better furniture every few years, lavishly decorated homes, 2 or 3 cars, the latest whizzist computer, a new cellphone every year with ever improved great features ($1300, $1400...), extensive travel, meals at nice restaurants, more, more, more.

It's a relentless driver.

It keeps people hard at work to earn enough to at least stay even with the monthly payments on all that stuff. The ruling class was quite aware that home ownership would limit workers willingness to take risks with unions, strikes, and leftist politics. A mortgage helped the relatively powerless buy into the status quo. The 65% of workers who own their own homes have a stake in the system. The system may be less successful in keeping renters at work, but evictions remind renters that they had best get to work every day if they want to stay where they are.

150 objects — Tom Storm

1 fork, 1 spoon, 1 knife, 1 bowl, 1 cup, 1 left shoe, 1 right shoe, 1 shirt, 1 pant, 1 hat, 1 house, 1 car, 1 computer, 1 towel, 1 tooth brush, 1 light bulb, 1 chair, 1 blanket, 1 pillow, 1 roll of toilet paper... Hell! it adds up quickly!

My house was built in 1918; 850 square feet on 1 level for a couple and 1 child. Much less than what some people now consider barely habitable for 1 person. No closets? Working class people once had no need for several large closets. They didn't have that many clothes.

There is a source for consumerism; it didn't just arise out of nothing. Edward Bernays and many associates developed methods of manipulating the public for the benefit of, among others, manufacturers and retailers. There has always been a desire among those with enough resources to enhance their lives with better material goods -- so that part isn't new. Over time, let's say from 1901 onward, retailers made concerted efforts to get people to buy more of newly invented, newly manufactured goods. Then, just more.

The resulting increased consumption certainly didn't feel like an evil thing. Consumption increasingly drove production (GDP) and plentiful jobs. We live in the world where consumption has been taken to its logical extreme.

Socialism or communism aren't the cure; their impulse isn't towards minimalism, it's toward equality of resources, and more.

Environmentalism can be a route to minimalism. Get rid of the car, use a bicycle or public transit; consume less; stay home (avoid air travel); get rid of the little pasture on which no cow will ever graze (the lawn).

Religion can be a route to minimalism--asceticism. 150 objects with no car, no computer, that one dim light bulb. Grim but holy. And very good for the environment and the soul.

Asceticism has a huge downside: Were it to be widely practiced, it would send the world's economies into free-fall from which there would be much chaos and many deaths. That's the whole catch to the global warming problem: Bring fossil fuel consumption to a screeching halt and the consequences are severe. Don't halt fossil fuel use, and the consequences are severe.

I love historicism — Moliere

Maybe I spoke too soon. I like reading history. I'll just stop there.

I love historicism — Moliere

Same here.

an acknowledgement that there is a difference between philosophy and the history of philosophy — Moliere

This is applicable in several fields. The history of science isn't science; the history of the arts [literature, painting, music...] isn't "art"; but a decent history requires the historian to be sensitive to, delight in, be familiar with performance, etc, else one gets a ham-fisted treatment. The history of philosophy requires an engagement with the relevant philosophers.

Books about philosophy are sometimes the best approach to a given philosopher, because the about can provide context, background, explanation of terms, and so forth that a general reader might not (probably doesn't) have. That's certainly the case for me.

We might talk about "the history of ideas" because it is part of history, and as we know (I think we at least have some idea) that the conditions of life CHANGE over time, and along with those changes, our thinking.

Do you buy the idea that "how the conditions of life in any give time and place relate to changes in thinking (arts, sciences, philosophy, politics, etc.) is "history"?

If you do, what's your problem with Wayfarer's paragraph? If you don't buy it, what is your definition of history?

We don't seem to be gaining any ground against @Wayfarer's statement that "there is no countervailing ideology to consumerism".

I pretty much listen to public radio, whether it's NPR, the BBC or the local service. I don't watch TV. Can't comment much on broadcast liberal news outlets. The New York Times is a liberal news source, more or less.

"Deaths of despair" and opioids do get more mention on NPR than some other media, just guessing. What media in general are reluctant to do is get specific about how the despairing dead were driven to their graves over an extended period of time -- cutting costs by exporting production overseas; destroying the labor that gave these men and their families a half ways decent life; cutting social services of all kinds in neoliberal drives to "get government off our backs"; dismissing these people as "deplorable", and so on.

Immiseration doesn't happen all by itself; neither does huge accumulations of wealth. There is a causal relationship between despair at the bottom and greed at the top. It's obvious; report on it.

Yes, there are efforts to organize Amazon and Starbucks. Both corporations are vigorously opposing unionization and the successes have been pretty limited. According to NPR, "Since then [the organization drive at a Staten Island facility], though, the Amazon Labor Union has gained little ground. It has yet to win another union election. And Amazon still refuses to sit down for contract negotiations." March, 2023

More Starbuck locations have been organized, but according to Wikipedia, "As of June 2023, over 8,000 workers at over 331 Starbucks stores in at least 40 states in the United States have voted to unionize, primarily with Workers United. As of March 2023 none have yet enacted a collective bargaining agreement.

Starbucks Corp. also strongly resists unionization. So, good to talk about this little success story.

The Service Employees International Union has had more success organizing office cleaners and the like -- 2,000,000 members strong.

Yes, it's possible they want to highlight historically underrepresented groups and correct an unfairness that has been the status quo for a very long time. I'm sure some staff within the public media organizations would like to do that.

What makes me doubt that this is a deep commitment is the "bandwagon effect" in which an about-face occurred in all sorts of organizations at pretty much the same time. Highlighting historically unrepresented groups was suddenly de rigueur; it was "trending". Time will tell how long this new-found virtue will last.

Then there are the groups that remain in the pre-woke shadows, like working class white men--a group that has historically been discounted. The plight of workers in general isn't prominent, and it will probably be a cold day in hell before public media gives extended attention to the exploitation of the working class by the predatory rich. One rarely hears much about the history of organized labor, unions, unionization, or corporate and legislative efforts to block unionization. The increased immiseration of large parts of the working class--and its class-related cause--is another neglected topi that affects working men, women, blacks, whites, latinos, and asians.

I thought NPR was even minded - then they began supporting wokeness — jgill

NPR isn't what it used to be; the same goes for some other public TV / public radio / public media operations. What was the cause? Changes in management; changes in funding levels and funding sources; herd-movements among media operations of all kinds; etc. The 1619 project started in 2019; a year or so later there was George Floyd's death (and several others) and the ensuing riots. The media, managed and staffed by a lot of white people (especially those "white men") seemed to have a crisis of "white guilt" that required compensatory changes in how and what was reported.

An example: Minnesota Public Radio's music programmers suddenly woke to a previously unmet need to program and promote black classical composers and musicians. Suddenly Florence Price (died in 1953) was hot. She's a worthwhile composer, certainly. The quality of the music they added to the repertoire isn't in question. It's the obvious and PR loaded reasons for the change. their 'racist guilt'.

If all reporting is biased, does this mean that all reporting is equally biased? — hypericin

No, all reporting is variably biased, and we can not immediately be sure how.

We do not/can not see the world "as it is". We always have a POV; we are all subject to at least several of the numerous cognitive biases available; we always have our own histories; we are always influenced by others' reports--and so on. Further, the receiver of reportage is also biased in several ways.

Do our deficiencies mean that there is no "truth" in reporting?

Something approximating "The Truth" has to be extracted from the information available to us. The news media are variable, but are generally consistent in their bias. Fox News won't sound like NPR. The New York Times won't sound like Epoch Times. On important topics (like global heating, climate change, fossil fuels, etc.) one has to dig deeper, adding books, web sites, magazine articles, and the like. Reflection and discussion are essential. (Given that we have lives to lead, only a few topics can be subject to intensive consideration.)

So, one compares and contrasts; looks for bias; is on guard for major inconsistencies; checks multiple resources; and so on. Eventually one settles on what feels like a reliable version. The reliable version may stand up over time, or fall apart.

Got any examples in mind? Any particular cultural forms you can point to? — Wayfarer

The only western institutional practice of asceticism of which I am aware is the practice of poverty among some religious. Most nuns and monks may have little personal property, but collectively they have access to substantial material resources. There are a few monastic communities who are poor by choice, poor in resources, poor in food, clothing, and shelter. Their lives are quite restricted, mostly spent in prayer. A related institution might be the Catholic Worker Movement which was/is, in some ways, monastic but was deeply engaged in working with the poor and does not involve any profession of vocation.

There are also the occasional preachers of voluntary poverty (which can be entirely secular) and simple living. Voluntary poverty, if embraced fully, involves operating on really pretty marginal resources. The problem with this approach is that in cold climates, shelter and heat are required. Paying rent and heat (and other fixed expenses) requires some level of income. The requirements of employment for income run counter to the practice of poverty, so it's a difficult act to pull off, particularly individually.

Some religious groups practice counter-cultural lifestyles -- the Amish and maybe some Mennonites. But the Amish aren't trying to be poor. They're trying to live at their preferred level of modernity which is roughly what prevailed 150 years ago in rural America.

In sum, I agree -- there are damned few alternatives to consumerism.

I don't really want to think about this just right now.

One thing about the Affirmative Action decision and the legacy issue: The number of colleges where affirmative action, legacy admissions, and the like are major issues is small, mostly limited to a a small number of elite institutions, like Harvard. There are other colleges -- about 4,000 4 year colleges and universities, running the gamut of excellence. Many of these colleges admit large percentages of applicants to their very big campuses.

Just for perspective, if you don't insist on going to one of the very choosy, very expensive, very rich, very competitive schools, you have hundreds of good to excellent -- and much more affordable -- colleges to choose from. A degree from U of Nebraska or U Washington might not give a student the same entree as a degree from Harvard, Yale, or North Carolina, but if they choose majors which are likely to lead to employment, work hard for high grades, then they have a good chance of making a quite good living. They may not make it into the elite on the basis of their alma mater, but... tough bounce.

The large land-grant institutions (U of Michigan, U of Wisconsin, U of Minnesota, etc.) admit large shares of their applicants, so affirmative action is in many cases much less an issue. True enough, these institutions can afford to wash out a substantial number of first year students and still have large graduating classes. Some private colleges also practice relatively open admission--it isn't ONLY public colleges.

Informative article from NYT 7/3/23

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/07/03/opinion/for-most-college-students-affirmative-action-was-not-enough.html

Good OP.

Personal moral beliefs, though seemingly individualistic, ultimately align with the core features of morality, including social control, emotional responses, and the application of moral principles to oneself and others. — Judaka

Personal morality is / must be derived from the social milieu in which one is reared. We may have some innate, simple forms of right/wrong, fair/unfair, but these innate forms are too limited to count as 'morality'.

(Even other animals can be observed to object to unfair treatment (in very structured situations). Primates in experimental situations stop cooperating if the rewards are unfairly distributed or are of unequally quality (cucumber vs. apple). Dogs are satisfied as long as they get something; they don't weigh quality of reward. Dry bread instead of meat counts among dogs.)

Not many children survive without adult assistance, and thus we do not have adults who really devised their own system of right / wrong. People who "march to the beat of a distant drummer" are following social morality as much as anyone else is. That someone feels the distant morality is superior to the local version is a social decision.

Rendezvous With Rama was mentioned in a news story about Oumaumau. Yes, great sci fi novel, and the sequels were (like many sequels are) not great but not that bad.

Sometimes it's hard to put things just right. It came from outer space, right; but where we are is ALL outer space. Probably its source is in our own galaxy. Things whizzing by from other galaxies... hmmm, more disturbing.

Some people long for alien contact in the same way that some people (not necessarily believers) long for god. God made manifest or sentient beings from another star system materializing before our eyes would be approximately equally shattering.

Quote: He believes the tiny objects, about half a millimetre in size, are most likely made from a steel-titanium alloy that is much stronger than the iron found in regular meteors.

He believes? How about testing the spherules to determine exactly what they are made of?

this object must be an extraterrestrial artifact — Wayfarer

It is saying nothing surprising that this object speeding across the solar system and then heading back out is "extraterrestrial". How could it be otherwise? A "made object" of course would be a big deal; unfortunately we didn't get enough information about Oumaumua to make an intelligent guess (as far as I know).

Presumably, there is stuff zooming around 'out there' that was flung into motion by various entirely natural events -- things blowing up, things running into each other, smash ups, etc. The fragments will keep moving until some other object or force interrupts their travels.

Can learnéd men of science go off the deep end? Of course they can. Smart people are as capable of believing their own bullshit as anybody else is.

All that aside, I might wish it were true that we had found evidence of other highly intelligent beings. But so far, it always seems to take a lot of common sense bending to believe the "evidence presented so far".

Weight is a perplexing issue. Once one has ratcheted up one's weight from a slim BMI to an overweight/obese BMI, it can be really very difficult for most people to lose it, without some sort of event like surgery, injury, illness, or all three intervenes. Dieting ad exercise should, theoretically, work until you realize how much a body can do without surrendering it's fat stores.

Cancer surgery and covid helped me lose weight I was happy to be rid of, but I can't really recommend either one of those options. Those sorts of things can lead to one's weight being reduced to a couple pounds of ashes.

It's especially perplexing where people have access to, and can afford healthy food; where they have access to pleasant outdoor spaces, and where they can exercise; where they have access to and can afford information and medical care. There are all sorts of groups and products to help. But losing the weight--and not regaining it--remains damned difficult.

The Nordic model may be as close to heaven as we are going to get. Soviet-style communism is not.

We could blame obesity on sloth, gluttony, and greed IF it were the case that fat people were uniformly lazy, gluttonous, and never satiated. They are not. Further, the obesity epidemic slops over into places that have no right whatsoever to have many overweight people (given the relative poverty of the place). It is estimated that 2 billion people are overweight / obese. Why? Bad food: high-fat, high-sugar, high-salt, energy-dense, and micronutrient-poor foods, which tend to be lower in cost. These are the kind of "foods" purveyed by many corporations in the food business.

Households can be found with children who are both undernourished (in terms of essential nutrients) and are overweight.

What are you not sure is correct? Survey's are one way of estimating tobacco use behaviors; market data would be another way. A third way is investigation (observation). That's the sort of stuff public health surveillance does. Researchers end up with estimates, not head counts.

The information on middle and high school students use of e-cigarettes is depressing. Tobacco smoke (well, any smoke produced and inhaled under similar circumstances) produces a rich mix of chemicals, none of which are beneficial to health. Vaping doesn't involve incineration, but the fluid in which nicotine is delivered is chemically complex and not healthy. I don't have any information on long-term consequences of vaping (aside from nicotine addiction).

The key question is if rates of lung cancer are continuing to drop or whether they are starting to move in the wrong direction. — Joshs

New lung cancer diagnoses continue to decline because of a decades earlier and continuing decline in the number of active smokers. If, tomorrow, smoking became as common as it was 60 years ago, the pattern of lug racer would not change for maybe 20 or 30 years; then it would start to rise again.

Earlier detection and better treatment has reduced the certainty of death from lung cancer, but it is still the leading cancer in the US.

The American Cancer Society's estimates for lung cancer in the US for 2023 are: About 238,340 new cases of lung cancer (117,550 in men and 120,790 in women) About 127,070 deaths from lung cancer (67,160 in men and 59,910 in women).

Imagine if we taught our kids, "the less stuff you have and the less material wealth you can get by on, the more character you are likely to have and the stronger a person you're likely to be. — Baden

What are you trying to do -- cause a world-wide depression? (joke)

I'm not sure that sparse possessions, in itself, builds character. Character may have to come first.

Education would be nice but relative GDP is the dominant indicator of a "successful'' society, so it seems we're in a Moloch-type race to the bottom. — Baden

We can practice thrift, minimal consumption, healthful lifestyles, and character building through rigorous moral calisthenics, but IF everyone is to be fed, housed, clothed, educated, cared for, usefully employed, etc., we best have solid-enough GDP.

Rather than Moloch, I prefer the view that we have been parasitized by rich people who always require MORE from the working class who always have to put up with LESS. To paraphrase Jesus, "the rich you will always have with you" but we can certainly substantially reduce their number and demands through the usual and customary Nordic democratic socialism, with just the lightest touch of soviet purge.

The US applied the Nordic model after WWII, through cooperation of labor, capital, and government. That happy arrangement lasted roughly from 1945 to 1970, them things went back to suppressing the working class, exalting capital, and neoliberalizing government.

To what extent did the effects of second-hand smoking influence political will? Would our liberal societies have been less keen on regulations if the harm of smoking only impacted the smoker themselves? — Judaka

Such as, there is no such thing as second-hand alcohol, heroin, meth, cocaine, fentanyl, etc? Second-hand smoke helped the anti-smoking cause.

Some people (maybe a very large number) have little sympathy for the problems of addicts whose use is seen to affect only themselves. Until, of course, the deleterious effects of addiction do cause problems for other people. Then the response may not be empathetic.

Second hand smoke is harmful, of course, but the initial effort to reduce smoking was driven by the very high rates of cancer and heart disease among smokers. Second-hand smoke became an actionable issue in the 1980s/90s.

In areas where indoor smoking has been banned for some time, and the number of smokers has been reduced to a low 2-digit percentage of adults (like 15%), there seems to be increased hostility toward the remaining smokers.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers have aggressively marketed highly addictive prescription drugs, such as opioids, without fully disclosing the risks involved. — Judaka

Manufacturers market to pharmacy wholesalers and to doctors. I can understand how medical staff might not be familiar with a totally new class of drug, but how the hell is it that doctors and pharmacists were not aware that opioids are addictive? Opioid addiction has been around for a LONG time!

I am pretty sure that vaping is accounted for in smoking statistics which are derived both from sales records and from health surveys.

Marijuana smoking is more difficult to track because there are no "standard" joints like there are standard cigarettes, and not all marijuana sales are through state-licensed shops. Smokable marijuana is sold in bulk (quite small bulk packages) rather than in standardized joints. Some marijuana smokers share their product with others.

Marijuana does not normally result in emergency room visits, so that data point is out. Doctors and hospitals ask about street drugs; I would guess the self-reports on street drug use are the very model of unreliable.

I think there is an assumption among many marijuana smokers that inhaling unfiltered smoke and holding it as log as possible is somehow without consequences. "Marijuana smoking is associated with large airway inflammation, increased airway resistance, and lung hyperinflation, and those who smoke marijuana regularly report more symptoms of chronic bronchitis than those who do not smoke." NIDA

Governments could reduce the potential for addiction by regulating or banning the use of substances — Judaka

Tobacco is a good example of this. Over the last 50 years, tobacco use has been substantially reduced by a combination of price factors, banning indoor smoking, tighter policing of tobacco sales, and public health education. The unavoidable fact of lung cancer helped. Taxes have helped raise the cost of a pack of cigarettes in some states to over $9. Each cigarette costs at least 45¢ at that price. E-cigarettes have undermined some level of past reductions, and too many young people are taking up tobacco use in one form or another. But the thing is, smoking is much less common now than it was 30 or 40 years ago.

Intensive public health work costs money, and under neoliberal budgets, smoking cessation (and sexually transmitted disease prevention) efforts have been significantly reduced.

Very little talk about what most people really want: efficient public transit, a public option for health insurance, etc. — Mikie

I'm not sure about how badly people want a public option for health insurance, but it certainly sounds like exaggeration to claim most people want efficient public transit. Some people do, certainly--I do--but it seems like the reluctance to use public transit -- even when it is efficient and accessible, is pretty strong.

Addictiveness increases consumer retention and engagement in food, pharmaceuticals, social media, gambling, tobacco, pornography, mobile gaming and other industries where companies seek to maximize their profits. — Judaka

Aside: In what industries are they NOT seeking to maximize profits?

I prefer to group drug or alcohol use and gambling as additions, and activities like shopping, gaming, social media, exercise. and pornography use as habituating behaviors. Some of the same brain mechanisms are active in both kinds of behaviors, but addiction (e.g., to meth) is a far more severe task master than YouTube.

That said, you are certainly correct in claiming that businesess use both addiction (e.g., Purdue Pharma) and habituation (e.g., FaceBook) to maintain and expand their customer base.

I'm not sure how Neoliberalism figures into the problem of businesses manipulating customers, except that government conducts oversight over the marketplace with fewer tools, fewer personnel, and greater passivity. Getting people to buy stuff they don't really need is fairly hard work requiring a lot of ingenuity and employment of every [not illegal] trick in the book. But... we are all in favor of a vigorous economy (growing GDP) are we not?

Has there been a case, YET, of identical male twins both becoming women (or visa versa)?



Maybe it has?

The point of affirmative action in education was to intervene early-ish in the employment and wealth pipeline, as a way to redress racial disparities that are the lingering result of our history. — Srap Tasmaner

That was the idea for college admission, but not necessarily to supply diversity to elite professions (to whatever extent university teaching is still an elite type job).

Actually, there are too many "elite" being produced. There are not enough elite jobs to go around for the kind of jobs elite people like to occupy where they actually run things.

Sure…but what is your point? — Mikie

It's plain enough. I passively support free access to abortion, but organized opposition against Roe Vs. Wade has been active since 1973. I think equal access to employment and education is a good thing; lots of people support it, but passively. Steady and widespread resistance has a long history and is likely to eventually have consequences, overcoming passive support.

Today's ruling just isn't a surprise. We've been heading toward this for some time.